Did you ever wonder why some of the circles representing businesses on Google Maps are white and some are red? Here is a screen shot:
Some folks are asking on the Local Search Forum.
As you can see above, the RustyBrick listing is a red circle with a gold star. Maybe because I own the listing? But according to the thread, red circles mean the the business matches your query within the top ten listings and white does not match the query within the top ten listings.
Phil Rozek said:
The red dots denote a business that ranks top-10 (in Maps) for a search term that you just typed in. House Doctors apparently doesn't rank top-10 for whatever search term you typed in, which is why its dot is gray.Why do some dots have squares in them while others have a little symbol (e.g. shopping bag or knife + fork)? Well, because Google doesn't have cutesy little icons for every type of business. The harder-to-categorize ones just get a generic square in their map dot.
Forum discussion at Local Search Forum.
